The Evolution of Temperance Brennan
by Luciddreamer326
Summary: Half character study, half fiction. This is my "story essay" on how far Brennan has come over the past six years. Booth/Brennan in later chapters.
1. Teamwork

**Title: **The Evolution of Temperance Brennan  
**Rating: **T

**Chapter:** 1 of 10  
**Spoilers:** General 1-5 warning. Also semi heavy spoilers for season six as well.  
**A/N: **I wanted to approach this as essentially half character study, half fiction. So this is my "story essay" on how far Brennan has come over the past six years. Thanks to all who read and a special thanks to all of you who decide to hit the "review" button and toss me some encouragement.

_~Squints don't solve murders. Cops do.~_

_~"I can't think of anything I wouldn't do to help him."~_

_

* * *

_He thinks he knows her. Really knows her, in most of the ways a person can know someone. Or the most important of those ways.

But then she morphs and changes, while he is unsuspecting, and turns everything he thinks he has figured out about her upside down.

Temperance Brennan: The enigma.

When he walks in and sees her, it's deja-vu all over again. It's the hostility and glares, just like the first time...the first time he ever laid eyes on Dr. Temperance Brennan.

_~"Special Agent Seeley Booth."_

_"Dr. Temperance Brennan. Where's the body?"_

_He stops, debating on whether or not to extend more pleasantries or even a hand. Instead, he leads her to the bones.~_

"What are you doing here?" she asks, annoyance in her voice.

The Homeland Security Agent flashes him a pity glance, a look of "This is what you want, _who _you want?"

He grabs her bags and tells her its time for their departure .She whisks behind him, storming out of the makeshift interrogation room.

Reluctantly, she gets into his government issued SUV. He can almost feel the heated anger wafting toward him from the passengers side seat where she sits staring out the window. She turns toward him and he rolls his shoulders, preparing for combat.

"That's the best you can do? Getting Homeland Security to snatch me so you can stage a fake rescue?"

He laughs, trying to play it off but he is secretly impressed a woman with her limited social skills made the distinction. She would categorize it as deductive reasoning but he believes it has nothing to do with science.

"Eh, come on. I went through all the appropriate channels but your assistant there stonewalled me."

"After the last case, I told Zack never ever to put you through. He's a good assistant. You can let me out anywhere along here."

He tries to sell her the case, tries to get her to bite on the line he is floating. She severs every attempt with sarcasm.

"If you drive one more block, I'm screaming "kidnap" out the window."

Agitated himself now, cool sniper exterior and resolve long melted away, he screeches the tires as he pulls up along the curb. Before he can say a word, she grabs her satchel and barrels out the door.

He wants to let her walk but no one gets the last word with Seeley Booth, so he flies out after her.

"You're not the only forensic anthropologist in town," he growls but knows better.

Not only is she the only one in town, she's the only one on the whole east coast. He next option would be to call Montreal and to him, that seems like such as waste when she is in the same zip code as his work. Doing the only thing he knows to do, he offers to let her have full participation in the case.

"Not just lab work. Everything," she says with a finger point.

"What do you want? Spit in my hand. We're Scully and Mulder."

But Bones has nothing on Dana Scully, he silently muses. She was _the_ ideal woman: strong heart, intelligence, morals, insane work ethic, devotion. Brennan is not. Not even close.

"I don't know what that means," she frowns, brows furrowed and eyes squinted.

He extends a metaphorical olive branch and promises of murder. Just like the first time, he takes her the bones.

* * *

The first time she writes him into her book, the novel tops the New York Times Best Seller list. She's not one to sees signs in things or believe in flukes. She is a woman of science, not whim and happenstance, so she attributes it to her skill of writing concise medical portrayals and suspense. It couldn't be because of Seeley Booth. Not ever.

* * *

When she has the luxury of silence, mostly in the darker parts of night, she stares at the bones (always the bones) for a story.

Not so long ago, she would have only been interested in the breaks, the cracks, the wearing. The body tells a story, has a voice. She can read the lines and curves in her sleep.

She's on another chapter, in another world, when he enters.

"Thought I might find you here," he smiles lopsidedly.

"It's like home," she shrugs.

"But not home," he counters as he sits take-out boxes on an empty gurney nearby.

"Yes, but at home it's..." she begins but falters.

He doesn't look up from his task of opening the boxes but she knows he is waiting for her to continue. She turns off the light on her magnifying device and takes a seat on the stool near him. Her knee brushes his as she reaches across him to grab the farthest container.

In order to avoid air with no words, to avoid speaking she stuffs noodles into her mouth.

"You were saying?" he coaxes.

"Why exactly are you here at half past midnight anyway? No government slide to conquer of hot female to court?"

"It's government _ladder _and no one uses "court" anymore as a dating term except out of date forensic anthropologists," he frowns halfheartedly.

She smiles and he shrugs between bites of food.

"Why would I need to be anywhere else? Or with anyone else? I'm with my partner," he says, playfully slugging her in the shoulder, "With my friend, my pal, my buddy. This is fun."

He motions between them.

"Not so long ago, you'd have preferred to be anywhere else but with me," she almost whispers.

He stops mid-bite and looks at her.

"Do you still think that?"

"I...honestly don't know," she admits.

He lays down his chopsticks and swivels his stool to face her. Grabbing the eating utensils out of her hand, he lays them down and spins her to look at him. Their knees touch, connecting them.

"Hey, listen. Don't ever think that," he assures, placing a hand on her knee.

She doesn't flinch, doesn't break eye contact even though his touch still feels odd, not because she doesn't want him near her but because she secretly has become accustomed to the warmth of his palms somewhere on her skin. On the curvature of the small of her back, lightly touching the flesh of her bicep, resting against the movements of her shoulders.

"Yeah, sure, we've had our differences. But people change. They grow and morph. You know that better than anyone. You study...," he motions between the small space of their bodies, "Us."

"I know bones. I don't know flesh and organs and the ephemeral emotions supposedly attached to those specific areas."

"You know more than you give yourself credit for," he smiles.

His hand moves from her knee to just above her breast. She tries not to inhale sharply but this is Booth and he can read things about people that they never wanted anyone to know.

"You feel more in here," he says, tapping her chest lightly. It seems as soon as his hand is placed on her, it is gone. "What I'm saying is that you and me? We've come a long way. We're a team."

He turns back around to his food.

She nods her agreement and they fall into silence. Momentarily.

"At home, it's lonely. Here, there are people everywhere," she finally admits. "Here, I have someone." Even if they are just distant reminders of the actual people.

"You've always got me, Bones. Always."

_Yes, _she thinks to herself_. We're a team_**_. _**


	2. Nicknames

**Title: ****The Evolution of Temperance Brennan**  
**Rating: **T

**Chapter:** 2 of 10

**Focus:** Nicknames  
**Spoilers:** General 1-4 warning. Also semi heavy spoilers for season five as well.  
**A/N:** Sorry it took me a while to complete this chapter. It seems all I ever do is work. Hopefully the next installments aren't so spaced out in time. Also, all grammatical and spelling errors are my own. I apologize for any mistakes.

_"Bones identifies bodies for us."~_

_ ~"You never had a nickname?"_

_ "Oh, no. Just what Booth calls me. Just Bones."~_

_

* * *

_

He doesn't know where it comes from because it just sort of spills out of him. Everyone around him says "Bone Lady" or "Doctor Death" or "Hottie Scientist." Early on, before everything gets messed up and turned around, he doesn't join in with them or hop on the bandwagon of words.

He watches her walk the perimeter the crime scene tape creates with her head down, scanning the ground.

_Temperance doesn't fit her_, he muses.

Through word association, he has come to picture moderate climates and comfortable pleasantries. There is nothing temperate about her. She is either ice cold or a burning hot spark, which he finds oddly attractive.

She bend and the honey brown hair confined in a pony tail falls over her shoulder. Beside her, the trowel sits and she grabs it and a tiny shovel. When she works, she's meticulous, careful, precise. There is no hurried movements or impatient.

He goes to join her side, approaching slowly so as not to disturb the air that bends and flows around them. Dirt comes to embed itself in the ridges of her nails, caking to the cuticles. Sprinkle, shake, sprinkle, shake. The process is slow but he waits because these things take time.

A glint of something catches her eye, and his, and she delicately rakes through the soil. The curved, white speck emerges from the earth and she holds it up for him to see.

"We've got bones," she smiles. Radiantly.

He thinks that no one should look this happy at a crime scene. Any other person would not. _But she's not just anyone_, he admonishes himself. _That is Temperance Brennan kneeling there. Author, anthropologist, curiosity. _

"Yeah," he nods, reaching into his pocket for his cell.

After a few rings, his boss answers.

"We've got bones," he repeats, not sure entirely if he's talking about what's now in the evidence bag or who's holding its contents up, squinting into the sun.

* * *

The sound of sirens permeate the D.C. Night air as he stands in front on Lincoln, trying to think of anything but history and why she picked this, of all places, to meet him. He paces, one foot in front of the other. Back and forth, back and forth. He feels shadows form and move behind him so he spins mid step on his heel.

She comes to stand beside him, looking much darker than the last time he saw her. Circles color her eyes from puffy red to black. She stares straight ahead at the statue and breathes shallowly. Inside of him, he doesn't know what to say or how to begin.

"For someone so aligned with honor and duty and truth..." she says, huffs.

"What?" He has to ask. He's lost.

"I saw you on the news. You're quite the hero for putting Hasty behind bars," she answers. The corners of her lips twitch but he knows it isn't a smile.

A pang hits his gut because now everything makes sense. About why they are standing here, standing in this spot. He can almost feel her hand stinging his cheek again.

"I..."

"You took complete credit for the case! Not once did I hear mention of my colleagues or I. It was all about giving a good name and glory to the FBI. You used me to find the answers and then cut me out of the picture."

"Now hang on a second! You know you did your job well, along with your people. But that reporter was asking me about case specifics. You know, cop stuff."

"I would say I'm specific to the case," she laughs coldly.

"I handled the situation as I saw fit."

"Then you aren't who I thought you were," she sighs and turns to walk away.

"Bones," he reaches out, grabbing her arm.

Her eyes bore into him and a solitary tear slides down her cheek. He opens his mouth but only a puff of air comes out. She pulls her arm from his grip and steps back, hanging her head to look at the ground. Strands of hair fall into her eyes and she tucks them behind her ears.

"Don't call me Bones," she whispers, the last words he hears from her for two years.

* * *

When he sees her again, the chagrin leaps out in force. As she cuts her eyes at him, he looks at the Homeland Security Agent.

"Bones identifies bodies for us," he explains to him. As if they are a team. Or ever were.

* * *

The first time she hears it, it's cute. Even touching coming from him. But he's attractive because of his prominent brow ridge and asymmetrical features. He's a man and she's a woman, so she accepts the moniker passively. Over time, the words stagnate and repel feeling out of her. Passivity dissipates and anger grows.

When the word "Bones" rings in her ears, in that tone of _his_, it's all she can do not to scream.

* * *

He thrusts a brochure out and she strips the latex from her fingers, throwing them onto the nearby medical tray. He takes a step back and never says a word, just lets her look. Immediately she scoffs and walks past him, crumpling the paper against his chest in slight agitation. A waste of time. That is what she files this moment under and she breezes quickly to her office.

Behind her he follows, not like a puppy but like a lion. She can hear him growl in irritation but chooses to ignore it as she removes her lab coat and hangs it on the coat rack.

"You didn't even read it. All you did was glance at it and then crunch up your nose the way you do when I make you angry," he gripes.

She frowns and his eyes go wide.

"See? There it was again," he points.

"You want _me_...to go to _couple's_ counseling?"

"They thought it might help us out. You know, as partners," he offers.

"Oh, so what you mean is that instead of catching murderers and giving families solace, things I could be doing in the hour that you want me to go to this, I have to be talking about what it is like to work with you?"

She sits behind her desk and withdraws a file filled with x rays of the current case they are working on. For a moment, she waits for his mockery at not being able to see the scans without a light source but he says nothing and continues on.

"Actually the sessions are an hour and a half blocks, two days a week," he corrects.

"Absolutely not! The mere meaning of "couple's counseling" suggests that we are a couple, which we most certainly are not. Moreover, you want me to sit and listen to the ramblings and wild theories of a soft science which holds no more credence or credit than...than a flying saucer or the monster of the Loch."

"It's the 'Lochness Monster', Bones, and I think this could do us some good. Maybe make us better partners."

Her blue-green eyes bore into him and he throws her a smile.

She wonders what good can come of this, of this nonsense. The first time she is seated in the Federal Building with Booth, she glances sideways to see him looking mildly amused at her side.

* * *

"Bones are the items I specialize in. It is not my name, nor do I find it amusing. I would be more than appeased were he to call me Dr. Brennan or simply by my surname, as I do him."

The young psychologist smiles slightly with his elbows raised and fingers interlaced. The action confuses her, oblivious as to what might have caused this reaction.

"Dr. Brennan. Did you ever..." Sweets pauses, picking his words carefully, "contemplate why Agent Booth might refer to you by this nickname?"

"While I am not entirely sure in my thoughts, because assumptions hold little ground when tested against truth," she begins. "I have often wondered if he simply used this to anger me. I expressed vehement displeasure with him doing so from our very first meeting."

Booth huffs loudly beside her and turns. "I do NOT do it to piss you off."

Sweets holds up a hand, as if to stop a fight before it even starts.

"I agree with Agent Booth. I don't think he uses it as a way to anger you. Perhaps, maybe, he uses it as a term of endearment."

"...Endearment," she repeats.

"Say what now?" Booth scrunches his face, confused.

Sweets leans slightly forward and takes a good look at each of them before continuing on.

"Agent Booth holds you in high regard. While he often introduces you as a partner or his work companion, his calling you "Bones" shows a deeper caring and friendship than either one acknowledge. While you often butt heads, it is in a healthy manner. You challenge one another, creating an environment conducive to intellectual stimulation..."

"Whoa, hang on there with the stimulation," Booth halts, holding up his palm. "We don't _stimulate_ one another."

"I think what Dr. Sweets means is that, while we often respond to one another in a manner of hostility or heat, our partnership often yields positive results," Brennan tries to translate, but stops when she sees him shaking his head.

"Two too many PhD's in this room. So for the last hour and a half..."

"Hey, you're the one who got me to agree to come to these sessions," Brennan interrupts.

His brows knit together and she closes her mouth, allowing him the floor to speak.

He rolls his shoulders and moves his head from side to side, regaining his cool.

"What Dexter's Laboratory over here is trying to say is that we're...friends."

"Friends?" Brennan laughs.

The look on Booth's face, the mild hurt etched into his features, robs her of the noise in her vocal chords again. On the wall, the hand of the clock falls downward, another minute passed. No one says anything, no one tries. Even Sweets seems content to sit as they are forever, waiting for one of them to find the answer within themselves. She speaks first, keeping part of her vision on Sweets and her peripheral on Booth.

"Yes," she concedes, but not with guilt, "Booth and I are friends."

* * *

"You never had a nickname as a kid?" Angela asks in half amusement, half disbelief.

"No. Just what Booth calls me. Just...'Bones'," she smiles without really thinking, without remembering who it is she is standing in the room with.

A wide grin spreads across the artist's face, and she has to wonder what it is she just gave away.


	3. Religion

Title: The Evolution of Temperance Brennan  
Rating: T

Chapter: 3 of 10

Focus: Religion  
Spoilers: General 1-4 warning. Also semi heavy spoilers for season five as well.  
A/N: I just looked up a church in Washington D.C. Please excuse all semi-factual errors. Also, all grammatical and spelling errors are my own. I apologize for any mistakes.

* * *

He was an alter boy as a young child. Every Sunday, even at a young age, he was meticulous about his appearance. Black patent shoes needed just the perfect shine, pants starched and creased, shirt crisp and without wrinkles.

As his grandfather looked him over, he'd always say, "Shrimp, you're a shiny as a new penny. Too bad that robe covers up how good you look."

But he didn't mind. He always felt like a million bucks on Sunday. He wanted to look good for his grandfather, yes, but he also wanted to be worthy enough to serve God. Especially since he was in His house.

Wherever he went, he never felt truly alone. His father might be long gone but he had a better Father now anyway. He intended to grow up and be the best sheep ever.

* * *

The first time he killed a man, he reached into his fatigues and fingered the Saint Christopher medallion around his neck. He expected his skin to burn but it rested coolly in his palm despite the heat from the desert air.

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned," he whispered against the air filled with gunfire.

At twenty-three, he never wanted to take another life again. The weight was unbearable already. To live each day, every day doing this, suddenly seemed unbearable.

Composing himself, he picked up his gun and continued on the path of a sinner, on the path of being terribly human.

* * *

She says there's no God and it chagrins him. While he's long stopped attending Mass on a regular basis, (because the FBI doesn't allow time for God) he tries to never forget.

It's a cold day in November and they're at the Potomac, standing knee deep in the white snow on the ground.

He watches her trudge through the drifts ahead of him, undeterred and seemingly unaffected. The breeze swirls the hair that sticks out from the wool of her toboggan and her nose turns crimson with the temperature.

The only way to create warmth is to create friction so he rubs his hands together quickly, coaxing blood to move again.

"What terrible weather," he mutters moodily as the weave around the shoreline.

"What type of weather would you prefer for a murder?" she turns back, eyes looking as clear as the ice all around.

"That's not what I meant, Bones. I'm just saying, you know, it's cold and you have to work in this."

_And me too_, he wants to add but doesn't.

"I've unearthed remains in 120 degree dust storms in Egypt, dug in war torn zones like Israel, pitched tents in the sub zero climates of Russia in the middle of winter." She shrugs. "It's what I do."

"Whoa, wait. You've been to Israel?" he questions, intrigued. As if it should be a surprise that she's been. She's trekked more of the globe than he ever thought about seeing during his time with the Army Rangers.

"Yes. About seven years ago, a professor enlisted my help to identify a set of remains found in a crypt."

He picks up the pace or she slows down, he can't tell which, and they walk side by side. The cadaver dogs are ahead with the rest of the FBI suits, their navy jackets flapping in the biting wind.

"So what was it like? I've always wanted to make a pilgrimage of sorts there."

"Oh," she turns, excitement lighting her features. "Because of your belief in the mythical being of Christ and your adherence to the type of lifestyle that contains those practices?"

"Geez, Bones," he frowns in distaste. "You make it sound like God is in the same category as leprechauns or Sasquatch."

"Going by that line of reasoning, you are correct. There is no tangible proof that Christ existed or performed any of the miracles he did." She stops, squints a moment, then continues. "And the Irish fable of the leprechaun really just coincides with the occurrence of dwarfism in humanity, while the closest incident or record of Sasquatch has been the media dubbed "Wolf Boy" which is a result of rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis ."

"What about the Bible?" he counters.

"Accounts so dated, such as the Bible, hold no merit in today's world."

"So, because there are no bones of Jesus, he didn't exist." It comes out more statement than question.

"No one just vanishes. We all leave a record of ourselves behind."

He should expect his of her because she never changes. For someone so good at reading people's physical makeup, she oblivious to emotional markers.

They fall into silence, the only sound around them the faint sniff from the cadaver dogs. The gentle slosh of the river is gone, frozen solid by ice. No birds sit in the barren trees to create a song for the potential, eventual dead.

They're alone and time seems to freeze like the Potomac.

The first noise to break the day after the long minutes of nothing is a bark. His hear sinks just like it always does when it comes to this point.

Brennan is the first to arrive at the body, tucked crudely under mounds of muddy snow and stray garbage. She bends and rakes aside the crystalline powder to reveal small eye sockets on a tiny skull.

"Age approximately two to five years," she begins. Rake, reveal, rake, reveal. "See here."

She points and runs her hand delicately along a bone. "Notice the pubic symphysis. Female. Also there is an epiphyseal fusion."

He nods but never sees it.

"It means the child hadn't stopped growing," she clarifies.

All he sees, all he ever sees, are blurry faces to unknown souls. _It's a child_, he wants to tell her.

Maybe they were taken in the night from their warm bed and stuffed animals to agony and pain. Or maybe this small life never knew of comfort or love. Now though, they're in a place of contentment and wonder and he asks Saint Nicholas to watch over her soul in Heaven.

He crosses his chest and closes his eyes as her prays. He prays for everyone, every single one of them. Opening his eyes, he sees Brennan watching him intently, studying him like she does the bones under the bright lights of her microscope.

"So what does your God say about this? About cold, ruthless murder?" she frowns, sighs.

"He promises them an eternal life without pain or suffering."

"And if there isn't such a thing?"

"For her sake, don't you hope there is?"

She says nothing, sending them back into silence.

* * *

"You don't think there's some sort of cosmic balance sheet," she laughed at him once.

Then, he didn't know her, not the way he does now after their five years together.

Then, he had ducked his head and stared at the ground. He wasn't looking for balance, just absolution. Maybe not for every life he had had to take, but a few.

"I'd like to help you with that," she'd told him.

As he watches her hunched over another body on the platform, her colleagues flitting around, he smiles to himself. After five years, they're still together making the world, he hopes, a little better.

* * *

She's attended church only a handful of times in her adult life. Every one of them has been because of Seeley Booth.

She can still feel the gritty dryness of the sand in her mouth, even after diligently cleaning them. Maybe she tries to wash away the remainders of the earth but she thinks being buried alive, breathing and moving, will stick with her longer than the dust particles in her nose, teeth, and hair.

It's as if the sediment has become hard and compacted clay lying atop her skin. She feels herself grow into stone with each ticking moment of loneliness.

Then sound.

Her cell phone on the counter buzzes, causing her to jump. She tries to control her emotions and gather her composure as she picks up and breathes out a greeting.

"Hey, Booth."

"Bones, are you alright? It took you a while to answer. I was starting to get worried."

"I was just headed to the shower," she answers, looking in the mirror, past the running condensation and still sees dirt streaks across her face and sprinkled into her long locks.

"Meet me," he says giving her a numbered address.

"Alright," she agrees and ends the phone call, leaving her in silence once again.

* * *

When she pulls her SUV to the curb, she frowns and double checks the address typed into the memo pad of her phone.

The stained glass casts brilliant rainbow light all around. The architecture is old style Gothic with buttresses on both flanks of the building and a cathedral top extending to the stars glowing in the clear black sky.

She walks slowly down the pathway past the vibrant green of the manicured lawn to the heavy oak double doors.

Before entering, she stalls, breathes. She knows all religions, from the teachings of Buddha and the Muslim cultures to the more primitive practices of the aboriginal peoples of Australia and the black magic rituals of voodoo and Santeria.

She understands all of these just as she does Christianity-very little. Not that she lacks the intelligence or conviction. Her life operates within the realm of science and fact and God is not quantifiable or definable any more than Allah or the spirits of the Earth.

Her feet sound loud on the aisle to where he is near the pulpit of the vast expanse of the room. Candles flicker and dance, illuminating everything. Her left side grazes his broad shoulders as she slides into the pew beside him.

He doesn't look at her directly but a smile spreads across his lips.

"Thanks for coming, Bones."

"Of course. I'm just not sure why I'm here."

"After today and all that's happened, I thought this might be the right place to be. Right now."

They sit without talking and his eyes drift close. She fidgets in her seat and watches the candles flicker and pop. Eventually, his eyes flutter back open and he shifts beside her, arm brushing against her own.

"What did you ask for?" she queries.

"That's between me and a certain saint."

She doesn't understand, wants to ask how praying to someone else helps in getting to God. It's all a part of something bigger than her that she cannot get the grasp of a system of rules and ladders that Booth abides by vehemently.

A strong scent wafts into her nose and she crinkles it.

"What's that smell?" she frowns.

"Candles," he answers quietly.

She shifts in the pew, wondering what to say next. In her time working with Booth, she likes to think she has picked up certain skills that help her read people. Booth's contentment seeps into her and she thinks she is comfortable enough to re breech the topic.

"I'm okay with you thanking God for saving me and Hodgins," she offers, wanting him to know she respects him, even is she cannot fully resign herself to his beliefs.

"That's not what I thanked Him for. I thanked Him for saving...all of us. It was all of us. Every. Single. One. You take one of us away, and you and Hodgins are in that hole forever. And I'm thankful for that."

" I knew you wouldn't give up," she tells him, feeling everything shift inside of her.

As he looks thoughtfully at her, she smiles. After she turns to face the front again, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, Booth's prayers hold some merit. After all, she is alive.

* * *

"So what does your God say about this? About cold, ruthless murder?" she says, feeling the sadness seep into her speech. It takes effort to rearrange, to begin to compartmentalize again.

"He promises them an eternal life without pain or suffering."

"And if there is no such thing?" she counters, science and reasoning outweighing her heart full of hope.

"For her sake, don't you hope there is?"

She falls silent and turns from him, closing her eyes and envisioning this small child running through a field of daffodils and sunshine.

* * *

All around her, it's lights and tinsel and trees and presents. The holiday is rooted in both Pagan and Christian practices and she finds joining in to the contradictory festivities counter to all of her beliefs. But it's Christmas, base word "Christ" and suffix "mas" which is Spanish for "more" but looks like "mass" which, at this time of the year, doesn't have anything to do with science and everything to do with religion.

After she lets him pray in her home around a a table full of people she knows share the same belief system he does, he stays after they all have gone home and Margaret is in bed.

He lingers by the door and she can smell his cologne and at this proximity, this closeness, see just how physically pleasing he is.

"So, " she smiles and leaned against the door frame as he stands outside in the hallway.

"Nine o'clock on Christmas Eve. What are your plans?"

"Margaret's asleep or either pretending. I'm not really sure I care which. So, no plans. Maybe another glass of wine before bed."

The wine in her blood stream has already made her bold, for she stands closer to him than she would normally allow herself. For a moment, she wishes she had a bit of mistletoe above her head, just like two years ago. But so much has changed.

If she kisses him now, it would not be from first meeting attraction or a bet. It would be because she wants to, almost physically needs to. And that, for now, is more than she is ready to deal with.

"Come with me," he interrupts her thoughts.

"What? Where?"

"You'll see," he says.

Twenty minutes later, they are at the Washington National Cathedral. The nativity scene is lit up, an almost ethereal look to it.

He hands her a Styrofoam cup and reaches onto the dash, grabbing a sack of Christmas sugar cookies.

"How did you manage all of this?" she smiles.

"Picked it up at the gas station," he shrugs.

"How romantic," she says sarcastically.

He shoots her a look and she quickly takes a sip of the contents in the cup. The spicy cinnamon hits her tongue and the cold liquid cools her throat.

His fingers reach out to her and brush away some of the remnants of the eggnog. For a moment, he lets his fingers linger on the corner of her mouth. They're both treading dangerous water, at the point of being pulled under.

"So why here?" she points.

"I used to come here as a child. Best nativity scene in the city."

He takes a bite of cookie into his mouth and chomps loudly. In the background the faint noise of Christmas songs wafts out from the radio. It's all contradictory again but for some reason, she doesn't mind it much. It's the holiday season and she's here with him, not alone like she used to be not so many Christmases ago.

It seems like another time period, a different life-from when she sat alone and opened fifteen year old presents she had kept stowed away. Now she has a family and friends. And him.

"I know you don't believe in any of this but," he starts. Then he looks over to her and gives a lopsided smile. "Thanks for coming with me, Bones."

She returns his smile and nods. "I'm glad I'm here.**"**


	4. Children

**Title: The Evolution of Temperance Brennan**  
**Rating: **T

**Chapter:** 4 of 10

**Focus:** Children  
**Spoilers:** General 1-4 warning. Also heavy spoilers for season five as well.  
**A/N:** There is a specific reason I chose not to include the story line from the end of season six in this chapter. It comes later. Also, sorry it takes me so long to update. Just know that I appreciate every one of you who read or review.

* * *

They find a child, in a tree no less. Cries fill the night air and the rotating red and blue lights of the patrol cars cast purple hues all over their bodies.

He wraps the child in his jacket and whispers softly in an attempt to sooth the wailing. Faintly, he hums a tune he isn't sure of the name of but remembers from his own childhood, coming to stand beside her at the back of the police tape surrounding the perimeter of the scene.

"Why don't you pick him up and give him a cuddle," he suggests because he wants to look around the crime scene and ask a few questions to the local cops who called them in.

"Just because I have breasts doesn't mean I have magical powers over infants," she protests.

He shoots her a look and then asks her to just watch the kid for a few minutes while he tries to locate a diaper bag.

By the time he makes it back, the evidence is somewhere in the baby boy's intestine. When he tells her that the child is their responsibility, he sees a look of fear glint across her face and disappear.

When she hands Andy over to his new caretakers, he thinks he sees a solitary tear creep down her face like a winding vine, then disappear into the fabric of her collar.

He never really saw her as a mother, as a nurturer, as a person who would want any of the responsibility because she is very job oriented.

Humanity always manages to constantly surprise him, in moments where he almost believes there is little hope for anyone. She surprises him and he feels it go straight to his heart, the most dangerous place for her to be.

"I want a baby," she announces and he feels as if he's been zapped with a stun gun.

"Whoa," he says, holding up his hands.

"Horse?"

"Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute."

"Yeah, we can stop here," Sweets agrees, sitting on the edge of her chair.

"I actually found that quite interesting," she smiles.

"You wanna have a baby?" he whispers in disbelief.

"Yes. I do..I just. I just realized it. I should have a progeny. It's selfish of me not to."

"Selfish?" Sweets asks.

"Yes," she confirms.

"Don't you, you know, need a guy to.." he fishes.

"It's just sperm. You'd be a very good donor potentially."

Shock courses through him, as if this session could get any more surprising.

"Me?"

"But you'd need to be tested, of course."

_No_, he wants to tell her. _Just no_. Babies should not be made in test tubes, not products of human engineering. He believes in the old fashion way, in a man coming together with a woman.

But this is his partner sitting next to him and his friend, not his lover. He feels confident in his assumption that she would never make a baby with him that way because it would be letting him see a side of her he's only occasionally thought about.

He jumps slightly from the ringing at his side and grabs at his phone, flipping open the top.

"You just don't go around asking for people's sperm," he grumbles, putting the phone to his ear. "No, not you."

Never has he been more grateful to have received a case.

* * *

It's nothing but bright light at first. Nothing but brightness and a small bit of heat. He's heard about Heaven, about the lights, but these burn his eyes as he blinks, adding to the throb in his head.

This cannot be death because he's in so much pain but when his eyes finally focus from the blur, there before him is the most beautiful face he thinks he's ever seen. An angel has come to greet him and lead him away from his life, that's what this must be. Then it clicks.

Before this, deep inside his sleep, she was there. And...who was she exactly? He can't remember who she is and, moreover, who he is but his dream seemed so real and she's touching his arm softly and crying like they know one another.

"Who are you?" he whispers, manages to say despite the dryness in his throat.

A tear slides down her cheek and her mouth hangs open in silence.

The angel has no answers.

Time stacks on end and six months pass. He's Special Agent Seeley Booth again. It's taken time to remember to put on his cocky belt buckle, colorful socks, and "garish" ties, but he's back and reinstated.

Despite him being 100%, she never says anything about them making a baby anymore. Not once has she mentioned the words "sperm" or "insemination" or "pregnant."

When he looks at her for longest time after his coma, he fights the urge to call her "Bren" or touch her in any way he's sure he hasn't done before. Regimentation, routine, and repetitiveness overtake free thinking and doing and saying.

In the hospital, he'd asked her, curiously, what song they had danced to at their wedding because he was having trouble remembering. In fact, no one would recount his life with her back to him. The doctors only looked puzzled and said, "Perhaps you should speak with Dr. Brennan."

She'd entered quietly as he slowly tried to work the buttons on his shirt into the holes but his fingers felt numb. Side effects, they'd said.

He'd dropped his hands in frustration and they were replaced with another set.

He smiled at her, her hazel eyes gazing at him warmly.

"Let me," she offered.

"Bren," he said.

A furrow on her brow, quickly, then gone.

"The doctors said you were feeling well enough to go home," she tried to make small talk.

If he'd have been himself, he'd have seen this. Noticed it.

"I should say the same to you. I thought, by now, you'd be feeling the effects of pregnancy."

"What?" she said bewildered, letting her hands drop from his chest.

"Also, it's been bothering me. I can't remember the song we danced to at our wedding," he said, circling her waist and nuzzling her hair. She felt tense under him but he thought of it as anxiety.

"Booth," she said pulling away from his embrace.

Her expression looked pained, hurt.

"We aren't married." She shook her head and closed her eyes. "And I'm not pregnant."

He avoids touching her after that because it took weeks to lose the sensation that she was his and they had created a life.

On the way home from interrogating another suspect, she blurts out that having a baby doesn't matter anymore, that it was a foolish thing to want anyway. (As if life is foolish instead of precious)

He agrees, concedes. Inside, he still wishes they had something between them that was theirs.

* * *

He decides to take them to the new dinosaur exhibit at the Marian Koshland Science Museum because it's half Parker (for children) and half her. (Bones and science) It seems the perfect way to bridge the gap between the two and spend the day with two of his favorite people.

She takes a quick glance at the brochure after he lays it on her desk, looking up from the stack of paperwork beneath her pen. She shakes her head.

"What's this?"

"Bones."

"What?"

He frowns.

"You said 'Bones'," she replies, then stops. "Oh, you were referring to the brochure, not me. Alright."

"Yeah, it's the new exhibit they just opened up. I thought you might want to join Parker and me on Saturday."

Her eyebrows furrow and her eyes slant, fingers stopping on a part of the paper.

"It shows that the 'Dinosaur Walk' hosts the stegosaurus grazing with a T-Rex nearby. This is incorrect. The stegosaurus was a member of the Jurassic period while the Tyrannosaurus Rex came much later in the Cretaceous. This picture shows them coexisting when, in truth, they never would have encountered one another."

"So, is this your way of saying you won't go. Because the science is wrong?"

"No, " she shakes her head. "I would love to accompany you and Parker. It would be discouraging to know that such a young and impressionable mind would be receiving the wrong information, scientifically. I am thoroughly interested to see what other factual errors have been committed."

He snatches the brochure back from her and watches as her eyes light up, hoping that she can get Parker's to do much the same.

People pass by their sides at the museum and he let's them walk a few feet ahead, hand in hand with her pointing out the different bones and filling his head full of reptilian giants. She is better than a guide, better than any book he could ever give Parker.

She's a genius.

He'd told her this once. Once before everything got turned around and they were "Mr. B" and "Bren." Before he thought she was his and he was hers. Before, when he believed she might actually want him.

He shakes his head to calm his thoughts and tries to focus on her story about the inaccurate facts about The Big Bang and other "plausible" theories about why there are no more dinosaurs.

Parker says there are alligators and she commends him for his knowledge.

"Very good, Parker," she smiles. "Crocodiles resemble their ancestors from the late Cretaceous. Which means, they haven't changed all that much."

"Yeah, Godzilla too!" Parker smiles.

She shoots a look back to Booth but let's the comment slide, let's Parker have this because Booth can see that she knows Parker is proud of himself.

He joins his son's empty side as they come to stand in front of a large skeletal model of an aquatic animal with scary teeth that he cannot pronounce the name of.

She looks over to him and throws him a smile as she rests her hand on top of Parker's head.

"Thank you," Booth mouths to her.

She nods and for a minute, for the space and time they are in now, everything is alright. Life is good.

* * *

Childhood should be all about swing sets, sun-baked skin and running barefoot in the rain.

Her boot _cracks_ underneath and she stops her trek, letting the wind swirl about her and deposit dust particles in her hair and create mud on her skin as it sticks to the beads of sweat. The Earth seems to howl and moan, desperate for anything to dampen its surface.

Moving her foot out of the way, she bends and rakes the sand away from the bone protruding to the surface. The hallow sockets stare out into nowhere, only a remnant of the human it used to be.

"I've got another one," she calls out, to no one in particular.

The paper of her legal pad flutters, dances in the air and she has to lay it on the ground to halt its movement. She jots down the coordinates from her GPS then makes a note in the margins reading _Negroid, age five to seven years_, then pulls a marker from her bag.

The stick slices through the ground and the neon flag billows in the wind. Fire runs through her calves and thighs, an ache that sends pain all the way to her toes. The air comes into her nostrils and she breathes deep.

She stands, pushes the shades back up onto her nose and leans her head back into the Nigerian sun.

All around her, nothing but genocide.

"Hey, Sweetie. You look run down. How's it going over there?" her friend asks via video chat on the uplink from her laptop.

She knows her face is drawn from exhaustion, her eyes as hollow as the eye sockets on the remains from yesterday, on the remains of every day since she's been here.

If she believed in anything, in something inside and outside of herself, she might tell her friend that her soul felt weary, chipped at from horror.

Her friend does believe though, all of them do, so she uses the only expression she knows will adequately, but metaphorically, explain what she has been through.

"It's Hell," she sighs, closing her eyes.

The bodies gather, line up inside her mind and eyes. She thinks she sees a whole village rise, only to ultimately fall. Life burns out and ends with her left behind to collect all of the bones.

* * *

They say in every life, there is a tick. A loud, deafening tick that beats and drums on like a heart. The tick collects and gathers time, bunching it up and sending it into oblivion.

She's never heard the tick before or even thought about it really because she's only used to hearing the sound of sand bouncing off her skin in the Tunisian desert or the squishing of rain in her rubber boots in Chile.

So when she does hear the tick, that unmistakable loud sound in her head, she has to straighten her spine from its curved position over the set of remains before her.

It hits her then because she is 34 and alone on a Friday night in the loneliest of rooms at the Jeffersonian, bone storage. Before, she would have recognized that hundreds of bodies occupied the same space as her but now, to her, they are all fragments of the people she longs for.

It bothers her, that she isn't sure what to do about that biological tick, so she begins to do the only thing she knows: rationalize, weigh the pros and cons.

She's tired of being in Limbo.

* * *

It's been a year now and they never talk about brain tumors or babies. So much has happened since then and she can almost make herself believe it was another lifetime ago because here they are, at another crime scene, doing what they've always done.

Her brush dusts away the grime, revealing the molars first. Behind her, Booth's body language tenses and then he remains perfectly still, unmoving. He does not fidget or lose his cool exterior. Maybe this comes from being a trained Army sniper. She isn't sure because she's good about the physical things inside of everyone, not the intangible ones.

When she deposits the last bone fragment into the evidence bag, she steals a glance at him watching her as she works. His jaw remains made of stone and his brown eyes look syrupy, honey in the rays of sunlight. She begins to wonder, if they had made a baby together, what it would have looked like and what it would have been like.

She hopes that it would have had a kind heart, compassion, and fearlessness like him. His prominent brow ridge has always been his most attractive feature and she thinks that his symmetrical features, combined with her own intellectual and physical attributes, would have created a tiny force in the world.

But they are Booth and Brennan.

They do not make babies together.

* * *

_The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome_, she'd told him once.

As he guides her back to the SUV with his hand on the small of her back, she thinks they must be this, truly insane.

* * *

_Kathy knelt nervously over the plastic stick sitting on the counter. Nothing. _

_She began to pace, against her nature. _

_She was usually a calm individual, not letting nervousness wrack her body. _

_To take her mind off of the impending news, she checked the lock on the bathroom stall again. Secure. None of the life pulsing outside of the barrier would be barging in. No one, not even him-somewhere, out there. _

_Immediately upon thinking of him, a strong fire shot through her body, straight to her loins. Her partner, her lover, her friend._

_She heaved out a heavy sigh. The overwhelming sensation, the biological compulsion to be near him and full of him is what got her into trouble in the first place._

"No," Angela stops her.

"What?" Brennan frowns, turning from her computer screen.

"If you are indeed going with this story line, that Kathy is going to have Andy's love child, then let's not make this about science and biology and the need to reproduce solely to have an heir, so to speak."

"Angela, that is what having a child _is_ about. It's about an egg and a sperm combining to create new DNA and a new life continuing on a chromosomal pattern. It's all based off of the idea that part of us continues on, even in our death."

"But this...," Angela points, "isn't about death or murder. It's about life and love."

"Love is an independent variable in making a child. Independent, which in science, means the set of data that changes," Brennan scoffs.

"Love is not always a factor but for most, it is. For Kathy and Andy, it is."

"This is ludicrous," Brennan resigns, turning back to face the blinking cursor.

"So you are telling me that you wanting a child with Booth had nothing to do with love?"

"What? No." she frowns. "Booth possesses physical and moral characteristics that would make a strong child. Just look at Parker."

"Yes, Booth's hot. We all know that. And that's a good reason to jump into bed and ravage one another."

"Booth and I weren't going to 'jump into bed.' He had donated his sperm for artificial insemination."

"Maybe that's the problem here. You're writing in the Temperance Brennan mindset, not the Kathy Reichs mindset. You're..." Angela searches her friend's face to avoid hurting her, "Scientifically thorough. But Kathy's a heart kind of gal."

Brennan watches her friend swallow the last bit of red wine in the crystalline glass. Her own sits mostly full next to her on the desk.

Angela rises and lays a hand on her shoulder. "I need more wine. While I am gone, just think, 'What would Kathy do' ?"

She can hear her fridge open then shut. Trying to regain her focus, she turns back to the half filled page on her screen.

What did that reporter say?

She had been adamant that Brennan's books were popular not because of the forensics and science, but because of the relationship between Kathy and Andy, because of the steamy romance scenes, because of page 187.

_The counter felt cool under her and time ticked away, away into the past. While she waited, she let her mind catalog all of the possibilities._ I should have been prepared for this, for a baby_, Kathy thought. _

_All of the bad things floated into her mind but the good things did too. Like the fresh smell of baby shampoo and the silky smoothness of a baby's skin. Of Andy teaching their child how to read storybooks and play baseball. _

_She closed her eyes and saw birthdays with ice cream and summers in the pool. She saw what a terrific father Andy would make, not just in the present because she saw it every day, but for the future. _

_Kathy let herself ponder these things. About how beautiful life could be._

"Much better," Angela approves, startling her momentarily.

As her friend takes a seat on the couch, her mind wanders, idly, to Booth.

Andy comes so easy because even though he is in some way different from Booth, the two are basically the same. They have full hearts, loyal devotion, and strong work ethic. They are both good men, fiction based on reality.

She types the last few lines of the chapter, writing Kathy exactly opposite of how she would react, of how she would be. Closing the browser, she finds it terrible to envy one's own literary creation.


End file.
